The National Retail Foundation predicts that total spending for the holiday will reach $17.6 billion, making it the second biggest shopping holiday after Christmas. So it makes sense that companies would want to advertise during Valentine's Day.

It's a natural fit for jewelry and lingerie stores, chocolatiers, restaurants, and flower shops. Yet it is often those types of stores — whose wares are expensive and often high-end — that try to be edgy or funny, and have the worst ads.

There seems to be a general consensus, for example, that silverware in precarious positions is funny, and that turning different body parts into hearts is clever.